On Sunday, the NTA said in a statement that the matter is under investigation and that “the effort and integrity of the very large majority of bona-fide aspirants is not in question, and will not be devalued.”

Meanwhile, the Rajasthan Special Operations Group said that it found a ‘guess paper’ with 410 questions, out of which 120 questions appeared in the exam, and that it was investigating the matter.

On Tuesday, the NTA announced that it was cancelling the exam “on the basis of inputs subsequently examined by NTA in coordination with the central agencies, and the investigative findings shared by the law enforcement agencies”. The exam will be reconducted without a need for fresh registrations or exam fees, and the NTA has noted that the decision has been taken “in recognition of the trust on which the national examination system rests”.

“The decision has been taken because the alternative would have caused greater and more lasting damage to that trust,” it added.

What has happened earlier with allegations of paper leaks?

Considering the scale of the NEET-UG exam, allegations of malpractices and paper leaks surface each year. NEET-UG, however, has never been cancelled before. In 2024, there was a clamour among students and Opposition party leaders to cancel the exam and conduct a retest after a paper leak in Jharkhand. The CBI inquiry into the case had later revealed that candidates paid to get solved papers hours before the exam, with an exam centre coordinator in Jharkhand being involved in the leak.

While petitions in the Supreme Court called for a cancellation of the exam, the court refused demands for a retest noting that material on record “is not indicative of a systemic leak of the question paper which would indicate a disruption of the sanctity of the examination.” The court did, however, note that the fact that the leak of the NEET-UG paper took place in Hazaribagh in Jharkhand, and in Patna, Bihar, is not in dispute.

Despite furor over the exam, the Centre had also doubled down then on not conducting a retest. The Education Ministry had maintained that there was no large-scale breach of confidentiality, and Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had said then that the country should not hold the future of many candidates from rural areas hostage for “some isolated incidents.”

In 2024, NEET-UG results were initially announced in June. A re-test was conducted for 1563 candidates who were given ‘grace marks’ for ‘loss of time’ during the exam, and revised results were declared in July.

That year, the UGC-NET was cancelled a day after it was held on the grounds that the paper may have been leaked on the darknet. CSIR-UGC NET and NEET-PG were also postponed.

When was the last time a medical entrance exam was cancelled?

In 2015, on the orders of the Supreme Court, the All India Pre-Medical/Pre-Dental Test (AIPMT), which was held by the CBSE, was cancelled.

That year, petitions before the Supreme Court called for the cancellation of the exam on the grounds that electronic devices were used by candidates to access answer keys during the exam. In Haryana’s Rohtak, the police had intercepted a car with four suspects who were found with vests tagged with micro SIM and Bluetooth devices, and answer keys were found on some of their phones. The Haryana police had told the court then that 44 candidates were found to have benefitted from the answer keys. The court then ordered that the exam be cancelled and a re-test be held in four weeks.

NEET-UG replaced AIPMT in 2016. While it was initially conducted by the CBSE, the NTA began conducting the exam in 2019.

What measures did the Education Ministry and NTA put in place after the 2024 leak?

The chaos surrounding NEET-UG in 2024 broke out right around the time that the BJP-led government stepped in for a third term.

The Centre had then set up a seven-member committee headed by former ISRO chief K. Radhakrishnan to recommend measures for the smooth conduct of these exams. The committee submitted its recommendations to the Education Ministry at the end of 2024. It drew parallels with the conduct of elections and proposed a similar mechanism to ensure security of public exams.

The committee recommended that testing centres should be sealed in the presence of the district administration and police, and guarded till they are unsealed for the exam, in the presence of the district administration and NTA officials. It also recommended that the NTA collaborate with the state and district administrations in conducting these exams. The committee had also pointed to computer-based testing with exams in multiple shifts as the preferred mode of examination. NEET-UG is held in pen-and-paper mode.

This year’s NEET exam and the one last year were held after some of these recommendations have been implemented. For instance, the NTA has been collaborating with district administrations to ensure security of testing centres and exam material. Biometric verification of candidates was conducted, and exam material was transported in GPS-enabled vehicles with police escort. CCTV surveillance at exam centres was accompanied by a centralised monitoring system at the NTA headquarters in Delhi.

Mock drills to ensure security arrangements have also been held.